Andy Martino of the Daily News is an outsize presence on the Mets beat.

He writes about the games, sure, but also about enterprisey things like how race played a role in how Mets fans viewed Luis Castillo, and about the game-story form itself, all while tweeting fairly prolifically to his 12,737 followers. It has seemed at times that there must actually be more than one of him.

And then suddenly, on May 18, there were none. The bylines vanished and the tweets stopped.

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As of Tuesday night, only a cryptic tweet from the News' Yankees reporter, Mark Feinsand, shed any light at all on the situation, and it wasn't much: "He's had some time off, but don't you worry, he'll be back to work soon."

But all is, in fact, well: Martino and his wife just had a son.

"I will be back for the next subway series," Martino told me in an email. "My wife and son are doing great, and I appreciate everyone's interest."